Fencing Bear at Prayer

I wanted to enjoy it, I really did.  And I did, in a way.  The casting and sets were as usual delightful (go, Snape!); the special effects fully up to industry standard (great dragon!); the 3-D was much better than I thought it would be (even if, without the glasses, the world looked like nothing so much as post-PRK ); the audience was enthused and cheerful.  And yet... I've had a love/hate relationship with J.K. Rowling's blockbuster series ever since book 4, which I thought contrived beyond imagining (really, three trials spaced out over the academic year so that, what, the plot could end in spring as necessary?) but nevertheless read in more or less one sitting the weekend after it came out (my husband read it first, the same night).  The first three books had me fully captivated, but the last three I read more out of duty to my earlier interest than out of joy.  Not that they weren't gripping reads.  But. But what?  What was missing for me?...